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Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Today, I give you a simple focacia stuffed with yum vegetable filling. Focacia is an italian flat bread made using flavorsome herbs like oregano, basil etc. But this focacia i have infused indian flavors. The dough is spiced with cumin and pepper and the filling is pucca south-indian mixed vegetable curry. You can call this a baked vegetable sandwich bread too. All you need is a bowl of thin soup or a large glass of cold drink to call it a perfect meal.

I used my food processor to make the dough. The dough can also be kneaded by hand, but i chose the easy way.

Let us first make the sponge. In a wide bowl, take flour and yeast together, to this add warm water, mix well until all the flour is wet. Cover and leave it to sit for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, the dough will be all bubbly. Let us make the dough now. In the food processor bowl, take all purpose flour and whole wheat flour, yeast, salt. To this add cumin seeds and pepper powder. Run the processor for a minute to mix well.

To this flour mix add the sponge and slowly add water and start kneading a soft dough. Add water little by little, you might not need all of the water. Add oil towards the end to get smooth and soft dough.

Remove the soft dough onto a well-greased bowl. Cover and let it rise for about 90 minutes or until it is doubled in volume.

While the dough is resting, let us make the filling. Wash and chop all the veggies to small cubes. Heat pan with oil, add onions and saute until it turns translucent, next add tomatoes along with red chili powder and coriander powder and salt. Let it cook until tomatoes turn soft. Next add the chopped veggies and 1/2 cup of water. Add salt, cover and cook until the veggies are done and the liquid is almost evaporated. Let it cool completely before used as stuffing.

To make the focacia, Remove the doubled up dough onto a well-floured kneading surface. Punch out the extra air. Divide the dough into two portions.

I used an 8 inch removable-bottom pan for making this. But i would suggest using a large rectangle tray, that will make the bread a bit thin, since i baked in a cake mould, it came out like a big mounted cake. But neverthless, we loved the taste and texture.

Grease the baking tray well with olive oil. Roll out the dough into a circle that fits the bake-pan, Press down the rolled dough onto it. Brush the dough liberally with the chili-oil.

Spread the filling on top of the rolled dough. Now roll the other portion of dough into a round, fitting the pan and cover the filling with the rolled dough. Brsuh the top agin with chili-oil and make dimples on the dough. As i already said, the pan i used was too small, the bread was almost upto the rim. So i made a aluminium-foil collar around the pan, to make the bread rise nicely without falling off the pan.

Let the dough sit for another 30 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat teh oven to 180 C. Bake the bread for 30-35 minutes. Let it sit in the pan for 5 minutes.

Remove the bread on to a cooling rack and let it cool completely. Slice and serve a little warm. The bread doesn't need any accompaniment, as it has got the all the spices required. You can serve it with a mild soup or with a cold drink to make it a complete meal.